Beauty & Baigan
by Crystal Chocobo
Summary: The untold story of one of Final Fantasy IV's more annoying bosses.
1. The Fall of Baigan

It was very hard to crawl with no arms.

Cecil and his cronies had left Baigan for dead, continuing on their quest to confront the false king. He had failed. The Mysidian brats smelled right through his disguise, and the power bestowed upon him by his Master was not enough.

Inch by agonizing inch, he crawled away from the great set of double doors leading to the throne room. He wiggled on his belly like a worm, not knowing where he was going, much less what he was doing. He had grown used to the infernal whispering from the twin serpents that had replaced his arms. Without them, he was utterly lost. All that remained was the base desire for self-preservation at all costs.

How absurd must he look, a lizard in the shape of a man, with arms cleanly amputated from the shoulders. He had been strong once—strong, handsome, and _human_. Now what was he? A wretched monster fleeing his master's ire. No one would believe such a creature had been the Captain Baron's Royal Guard.

It was perhaps twenty paces from the great hall to the passage connecting the eastern tower, an arduously long journey in Baigan's mutilated state, but he made it nevertheless. A guard lay crumpled by the stairs leading up. As Baigan drew closer, he realized the fool was only unconscious.

"Brave Sir Cecil," Baigan spat. "So full of mercy."

It was no real surprise that the former Dark Knight had returned as a Paladin, it fit his sanctimonious air perfectly. No one cared it was Baigan that kept the seat of Baron's power safe, it was always Cecil and his Red Wings. Cecil, the king's surrogate son. Cecil, the Dark Sword of Baron. Cecil, the man who would be king. All of it was just handed to him. He deserved none of it. Baigan, meanwhile, had worked to where he was today… slithering through the castle like the treacherous snake he was.

What was he thinking?

Baigan was seething with anger by the time he reached the fallen guard. He didn't recognize the man, but there were many new faces among the castle guards lately, many of them mercenaries.

The dark shift in the once gentle king's demeanor had caused much unrest in Baron. Any guards that proved resistant to Master Golbez's powers of persuasion were left in prison to rot. Examples were made, but the executions only caused a spike in desertions. There was only one truly loyal soldier left that Baigan knew of, but in his present form he couldn't hope to see her and survive. Above all else, he must survive.

But why?

Spite, perhaps.

The guard shifted and groaned as Baigan drew closer. The idiot's sword was still in its sheath, but all Baigan wanted now was his cloak.

With no hands to undo the clasp, Baigan's only option was to rip it free with his teeth. The man awoke just as it began to come away. He blinked once, lizard-like, then gasped at the sight of the monster looming inches from his face. Baigan knocked him back into unconsciousness with a sharp head butt, turning the scream rising in the man's throat to a groan.

Fresh pain blossomed in the wake of the attack. The curse Baigan uttered in response was muffled by the cloak. Through it all, his arms showed no sign of regenerating. They had grown back no less than three times during the fight to stop Cecil, yet he was still left fumbling with stumps. At least he still had his head, though it took a considerable effort to pry the cloak away from the man by teeth alone.

Moving very slowly, Baigan carefully rose to his feet with his prize in mouth. He nearly lost his balance by flinging the cloak over his shoulder, but he had suffered enough indignities for one day. He wasn't about to carry it around like a dog.

He heard shouting from the top of the stairs. Someone was coming.

Baigan hurried to the seemingly blank section of wall adjacent to the stairwell. The brick that opened the secret passage was indistinguishable from the others, but then that was the point. With his head still pounding, he awkwardly raised one leg and pressed the stone with his boot. A doorway appeared with the soft grinding of stone. There were many secret passages in Castle Baron, yet Baigan was fairly confident only he knew of this one.

Maniacal laughter echoed down the stairs, chasing Baigan into the dark passageway.

He knew that laugh. It was Cid, the Chief Engineer. The stubborn old bastard had somehow escaped his cell. Baigan would, of course, be blamed for that as well, but he was beyond caring. Unable to protect both the true king and his imposter, Baigan had utterly failed in his duty to Baron. Like a wounded animal, all he wanted now was to crawl somewhere out of sight.

He got his wish. The passage leading down into the waterways looked as though it had been long forgotten. The torches lining the path were out, leaving Baigan alone in the dark once the door slid shut. Darkness meant nothing to his huge new eyes, thus he should have seen the puddle of water atop of the stairs.

There was no way to regain his balance once he slipped, nor could he brace himself as he tumbled down the roughhewn steps.

His last thought before falling into unconsciousness was, "Perhaps I deserve this."

It was his first clear thought in recent memory.


	2. Golbez's Gift

_Several Months Ago…_

Baigan awoke on a metal slab. He was surrounded by the quiet hum of machinery, but the bright light trained on him made it impossible to see anything beyond the table. Thick leather straps held him in position on his back, one across his head, another across his back, and two more across his legs. His arms were free, though the tubes connected to them made it feel as though molten lead was being pumped into his veins.

He tried to pull one of the tubes out, but only made it as far as raising his right hand before a shrill buzzer sounded. A cold metal prod tapped his arm, delivering a bolt of electricity that discouraged moving, or thinking, or doing anything more involved than twitching.

"Ah, awake already?" A voice said. "Such spirit is promising, very promising indeed."

"Where am I?" Baigan demanded, struggling ineffectually against his bonds. "What is the meaning of this?!"

A pale face hovered into view. The man had bird-like features that were only made more unpleasant when he smiled. A pair of goggles pushed back off his forehead were the only thing keeping his wild shock of grey hair even remotely at bay. He wore a long lab coat over wrinkled clothes, and as Baigan continued struggling he withdrew a syringe from one of his pockets.

"My, my, my. How quickly we forget Master Golbez's generosity." He punctuated the sentence by jamming the syringe into Baigan's throat. The sting of the needle was quickly chased by an awful feeling of numbness that filled his entire body.

"That's better," the man said. "Now then, I am Dr. Lugae. Like you, I serve Master Golbez. Unlike you, I am far more useful to him." He held his hands up, mimicking the balance of scales. "Brilliant scientist? Guard Captain?" One hand lowered drastically while the other raised. "No contest."

"_Royah Gah." _The correction was rendered a laughable slur of syllables thanks to the injection.

"Oh, good, it's already taken effect." The doctor clapped his bony hands together excitedly. "Now we're ready to begin. Initiate amputation mode!"

At his command, an automated mockery of a person loomed over the head of the table. With much clicking and whirring of metal, its hands disappeared into its arms, then reemerged as rotating circular saw blades.

"Wonderful, isn't it?" Dr. Lugae said. "Much better than a flesh and blood assistant. No troublesome questions, no handing me the wrong brain, just orders followed exactly. Helper, you may begin."

The robot uttered a damnably cheerful sounding beep in response, and the reason Baigan's arms were left free became clear once it saw hands sprang to life. He wanted to struggle, wanted to scream, but the injection had left him trapped in a haze. He barely felt it as the blades cut cleaning across his shoulders, severing both limbs with the tubes still attached. The doctor pulled them free, then tossed them aside like so much useless meat.

"No," Baigan rasped. He wanted to scream it, want to draw it until it rattled the walls of the madman's lab, but it came out as nothing more than a terse whisper.

"Very impressive." Dr. Lugae gave him a pat on the head for the effort. He snapped his fingers, and a drawer popped out of the robot's chest. "The last subject couldn't even make a sound by this point. I'd estimate your odds of survival are somewhere around, mmm, say sixty percent."

He withdrew a bottle filled with glowing liquid from the drawer, which instantly snapped back into the robot's chest.

"Now for the catalyst. Open wide.

"Baigan refused. Dr. Lugae sighed.

"Come now, boy, what did you _think_ Master Golbez meant when he said he would gift you with power beyond your imagining? No mere magic can produce the kind of results he desires. Though, admittedly, the methods still need some refining."

Baigan bit his lips. Dr. Lugae punched him in the stump of his right arm. It was difficult to tell if he was incredibly weak, or if the sedative meant he just couldn't feel it. Either way, there was surprisingly little blood coming from the fresh wound.

"I don't think you realize how precarious your position is," Dr. Lugae hissed. "What use is there for a Royal Guard when one of the Four Fiends now sits on Baron's throne? None! A mere human guarding Cagnazzo, the Drowned King? Laughable! Oh, but this—" Lugae tapped the bottle. _"This_ will make you useful again. This will make you a force to be reckoned with, assuming you survive the transformation." He stroked the growth of stubble on his pointed chin. "Factoring in your commendable, if irksome resistance, I'm willing to increase the odds to, oh… Sixty-three percent. They're much better than your predecessors, believe me. Now, _open!_"

Baigan reluctantly did as he was instructed. The potion tasted than fouler than anything Baigan had experienced before. The pain was even worse, so intense it burned right through the sedative, leaving him thrashing in unadulterated agony.

While Baigan screamed, the mad doctor laughed.

_Present Day (One Day after Cagnazzo's Defeat)…_

Baigan jolted back into consciousness, sending a trio of hungry rats scurrying away in terror. The mere memory of the doctor's foul concoction drove him to frantically wipe his tongue with his hand before he was aware of what he was doing, much less that he had hands to do it with.

He held his arms up in disbelief. They were whole again, yet different. Instead of serpents heads, they ended in comparatively normal hands. They were still scaly, and each finger ended in claws, but nevertheless they were a marked improvement. He touched his hands to his face, confirming that much was unchanged. He would not pass for human in any light, and without Golbez's trinket he could not appear as he was.

"Golbez…" He hissed.

It was hard to say if it was the severe beating he suffered at the hands of Cecil and his allies, or the fall down the stairs, but something had shaken free in his mind. He no longer saw Golbez as his lord and master, but as the ruthless invader he was… A ruthless invader Baigan had failed to thwart. Like so many others, he had fallen prey to Golbez's manipulations. He had truly believed that Golbez's will was Baron's will. At Golbez's behest, he had allowed himself to become a monster.

He clenched his hands into fists. He had been a damned fool. Even if Cagnazzo fell, Golbez had many agents in Baron, and not even Baigan knew how many had received 'gifts' like his. He pushed himself up slowly, drawing the stolen cloak over his head.

Something had to be done, and there was only one person he could think to turn to for help.


End file.
